Stew with potatoes and peas 🤩🤩🤩 

Stew with potatoes and peas is a traditional second course, very simple and rich in flavor that requires slow cooking. Today I'm going to reveal all the tricks and secrets to make it tender and tasty: You can use either veal (more tender and quick to prepare, but more expensive), or beef (cheaper, but needs a very long cooking to become tender). Choose pieces of meat that are suitable for this type of cooking. The best are mainly the less valuable cuts suitable for long cooking:

1) Pieces obtained from the SHOULDER: such as the spindle or pulp or shoulder swivel, obtained from the shoulder muscles, in addition to the positive characteristics it has an excellent quality-price ratio 

2) Pieces obtained from the NECK: like the tender or royal, it coincides with a large muscle mass of the neck full of connective tissue, perfect for slow cooking 

3) Pieces obtained from the BELLY: alternate layers of muscle and layers of fat, for a soft and tasty stew. Let's see the process ***

Ingredients

1 kg Meat for stew

700 g Potatoes

300 g Frozen peas

Extra virgin olive oil

1 Coarse onion

2 carrots

2 ribs of Celery

1 clove Garlic

50 g Bacon

1/2 cup Wine

2 tbsp Flour

150 g Tomato puree

Salt

Pepper

Broth

Preparation

For the stew with potatoes and peas, cut the meat into cubes of about 2 cm. Chop the onion and garlic. Remove the filaments from the celery. Peel the carrots with a potato peeler and remove the ends. Rinse the celery and carrots and cut them into small cubes with a knife or chop them with an electric food processor. Heat the oil in a large saucepan or saucepan, add the chopped vegetables and cook for a couple of minutes over low heat. Add the diced bacon and let it flavor. Pour in the meat, turn up the heat and sauté for 5 minutes. Then pour in the wine, let it evaporate, then season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the meat with flour, stir, and add the tomato puree and a few ladles of hot broth. You can make the broth with meat, vegetables or if you don't have time to stock cube. Cover with a lid, reduce the heat and cook the stew with potatoes and peas until softened. Stir occasionally and add more broth whenever needed. It could take anywhere from an hour to two and hours of cooking, depending on whether you use veal or beef, and the cut of meat. Peel the potatoes, cut them into not too small chunks and add them to the preparation. The potatoes must be immersed in the liquid to cook, so if it has been consumed, add more broth. After a few minutes, add the frozen peas. Cook in a covered pan for another 10 minutes. Then remove the lid, turn up the heat and let it consume for a few more minutes until you get the right consistency of the cooking juices. The stew should not be watery. Once ready, bring the stew with potatoes and peas to the table and serve. Enjoy your meal! 🤩

Wine experts think this Northern Italy Red wine would be a match made in heaven with this dish. 

Tenute Sella Bramaterra I Porfidi 2011

Tasting note

These Northern Nebbiolo’s are always extremely good value and age just as nicely as their southern sisters. Tasted blind initially it appeared more fruit driven than classic Nebbiolo, with even some citrus. To me it has more Burgundy similarities than classic Nebbiolo. Very impressive again by Tenuta Sella

Interesting Facts

Until the last 20 years, Barbera was the most widely planted red variety in all of Italy. Many varieties of wine from Northern Italy are now being planted in California. Italy produces more wine than any country in the world accounting for nearly 1/3 of global production. How does this style taste?

Cherry

Red fruit

Raspberry

Strawberry

Cranberry

Red cherry

Red currant

Sour cherry

Pomegranate

Red plum

Wild strawberry

Ripe strawberry

Oak

Vanilla

Chocolate

Tobacco

Coffee

Cedar

Clove

Dark chocolate

Caramel

Butter

Baking spice

Cola

Plum Blackberry

Black cherry

Black currant

Dark fruit

Blueberry

Black fruit

Jam

Cassis

Black plum

Bramble

Mulberry

Grape: nebbiolo 70%, croatina 20%, vespolina 10%

Alcohol: 13%